Morocco: Hafida – Ayan Dar Illa Zine
There are some cracking videos of the Berber pop star and wedding singer Raissa Hafida out there – it’s well worth watching her in full flow with her super laid-back all-female backing band. However, one of her most popular songs is this Auto-Tune augmented nuptial celebration number, Ayan Dar Illa Zine, with its psychedelic video featuring crimson digital butterflies, henna tattoos and moustachioed table-dancing knife men. For a significant proportion of the artists who are featured in this column, performing as a wedding entertainer is a big, if not primary, part of the job, with YouTube clips such as these acting as the main means of advertisement. If you’re yet to be convinced that Berber weddings in the Souss-Massa-Drâa region of Morocco are the most awesome-looking events it’s possible to get invited to in North Africa, then check this short film out.
Egypt: Shlomo Casio – Farkha We Shagara EP
A friend of this column, DJ Umb from Generation Bass – one of the fine folk responsible for putting out the first major western electro chaabi anthology The Best of Sadat and Alaa Fifty Cent – tipped me off about this great EP. It sounds completely unlike the hyper-powered, ear-boggling music of Sadat and Fifty; this Egyptian synthpop act who, well we have absolutely no idea. All we have is these two anonymous, lugubrious, romantic, Europhile cold-wave tracks that reference Victrola and Dazzle Ships era OMD. With a mere 11 followers on Soundcloud and no other biographical information, your guess is as good as mine. If you know anything about this excellent group, please drop me a line.
Lebanon: Mazen Kerbaj – Starry Night
At the end of last year I made the rash and bombastic claim that noise artist 20.SV had created the most terrifying sounding piece of Lebanese sound art, which caused a colleague to remind me that I was perhaps forgetting about Mazen Kerbaj’s Starry Night (a short excerpt of which you can hear below). I don’t think there’s any need (or indeed any scientific way) to prove which one is genuinely the more frightening, but in its entirety, Kerbaj’s piece of improvised music will chill you to the core. This multi-disciplinarian artist recorded himself playing an improvised duet on trumpet with the sound of Israeli bombs that were falling near to where he lived on 16 July 2006 – the effect is nothing short of stunning. Probably more disturbing than the sound of the bombs themselves, is the unexpected noise of a symphony of car alarms set off by the attack.
Israel: Maya Dunietz and Ram Gabay - Perpetuum Disco
Tel Aviv-based experimental keyboard player Maya Dunietz has a reputation that precedes her and has already lead to collaborations with John Zorn, Mike Patton, Evan Parker and Iancu Dumitrescu, as well as composing a score for a 600 strong female choir. Here she is teaming up with superbad sticksman Ram Gabay, letting the partially constructed rooftop choogle and industrial skronk flow free and fast.
Morocco: N3rdistan – T3ich w tchouf
I like this pleasingly Radioheadesque, 65 Days of Static-like geeky glitch-pop, but let’s have it straight: you wouldn’t want this played at your big fab Berber wedding would you?
Thanks this month to DJ Umb of Generation Bass, Joost Heijthuijsen, Stewart Smith, Julian Jaubert and Pavel Godfrey. Please feel free to email suggestions for inclusion in future playlists to John@TheQuietus.com
